TUNED IN ONLINE

After spending 10 years at WDJQ-FM in Canton, Patrick DeLuca now broadcasts from his Alliance home on The DeLuca Show Network, an online radio station that he and former WDJQ co-host Charlotte DiFranco started in February.

A former terrestrial radio show has taken its act online and is now thriving.

Patrick DeLuca and Charlotte DiFranco, former hosts of “DeLuca In The Morning” on adult-contemporary station WDJQ-FM in Canton, have in three months started not one but two full-fledged Internet radio stations and show no signs of slowing down.

Their stations, now heard online and via multiple smartphone apps, are heard by thousands of listeners from more than 50 countries, including many who followed the duo after their highly publicized exit from WDJQ after six years in the morning-drive time slot.

And though terrestrial radio stations, like all forms of media, struggle with declining advertising revenue and plummeting listenership, DeLuca and DiFranco, both Northeast Ohio natives, have found a medium free of corporate mandates and Federal Communications Commission governance. Also, this is a medium that is actually growing in listeners.

Their adventure, which has lasted all of three months, is far from complete but already has put the duo in the spotlight of a landmark court ruling.

Their mission: to bring their original radio content to a greater audience.

IN THE COURTROOM

DeLuca and DiFranco, who first teamed up in 2006, for years dominated the morning airwaves in Canton.

In the most recent Arbitron ratings, released in January, DeLuca said the show posted its best ratings ever.

But the show, which in its current state consists of DeLuca, DiFranco and producer Jason “Virgil” Pantera, could not come to a new contract agreement with WDJQ and parted ways with the station in early February.

The terms of their previous contract, like many in the industry, barred the duo from any on-air duties at terrestrial radio stations within 60 miles of the Canton market.

DeLuca and DiFranco, however, started their own radio station, available online at www.theradiosucks.com, broadcasting three live shows weekly during the past two months.

WDJQ sued the duo, claiming a one-year noncompetition provision survived the expiration of their contracts and prevented DeLuca and DiFranco from streaming any show on the Internet.

Atty. Steve Okey of the Canton-based Okey Law Firm, who represented the former hosts, argued the noncompetition language prohibited DeLuca and DiFranco only from running a business that was “the same or essentially the same as a commercial radio station.”

“It’s definitely a first-of-its-kind thing,” said Okey. “I’ve found no cases like this anywhere in the country.”

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

Eighteen days after leaving WDJQ, DeLuca and DiFranco started The DeLuca Show Network or “DSN,” an online radio station that originally played local music and repeat shows of “DeLuca In The Morning.”

Court battles, licensing fees and three staff additions later, the station — located in a bedroom inside DeLuca’s split-level Alliance home — is live and local from 7 a.m. until midnight, Monday through Friday.

The hosts in other day parts are well-known names to those in Northeast Ohio, most notably Keith Hamilton, former program director at Canton mainstream rock station WRQK-FM, who hosts a show called “The Basement” from 7 p.m. to midnight weeknights.

Hamilton, however, recently moved from The DeLuca Show Network’s pop-based station to its rock spinoff.